“It is,” I retorted, “for a woman’s jealousy is like a fire kindled in a stubble field, and consumes all before it.”
He stared. “I hope the Prince Galitsyn may discover the true situation and deliver us,” he remarked.
“I hope he may,” I said, “and withdraw his ridiculous pretensions.”
“I do not understand you, monsieur,” replied Maître le Bastien.
“I beg your pardon,” I rejoined, “but we both hope for similar results, though from different causes, so we are both of the same mind in the end.”
He looked perplexed. “I do not believe that the czarevna will dare to carry matters to extremes against two Frenchmen,” he said.
“Bah!” I retorted; “she has no conception of the greatness of France, of its splendour, its resources, its power! These Russians think that Moscow is the centre of the earth; their arrogance is absurd!”
“It is,” said the goldsmith; “but it is ever the smallest cock in the barnyard that crows the loudest.”
I replied in kind, and we continued, for some time, to give vent to our feelings by similar expressions, and then, finding that no one came to our relief and that we could not escape, Maître le Bastien produced a pack of cards from his pocket and we fell to playing picquet as long as our one taper lasted. As for supper, we had none, and were forced to go hungry, and to sleep on the wooden settles in the corners; for they gave us no beds, and we would have suffered from thirst as well as hunger, if we had not found a pitcher of clear water on one of the window ledges. In these dismal quarters, therefore, we passed the night, and, awakening with the sunrise, found the prospect still unchanged.
Hunger does not mend the temper, and we began the day grumbling at our treatment, and we were not destined to immediate relief; it was on in the morning, toward seven o’clock, when the door opened, at last, to admit Kourbsky and a serf who brought a meagre meal and set it on the table, so meagre indeed that I began to wonder how three men were to partake of it, when the chamberlain solved the mystery.